


Letter Analysis

by Damned_Writers



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Long-Distance Relationship, Love Letters, M/M, Trans Julian Bashir, relationship through time snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23459878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Damned_Writers/pseuds/Damned_Writers
Summary: I did this for a drabble prompt: You ask for prompts and I'm here again to seek new content to read: 3. How often do/can they see each other (due to living on different planets, having stressful jobs, etc) with Gashir (/Garakshir) 🤩🤩
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 2
Kudos: 33





	Letter Analysis

**Author's Note:**

> Description: Eyyyyy. I am just gonna… casually fold into this… a little trans-Bashir as a treat…. because it’s trans day of visibility!!! Also I hc Cardassians as intersex, in the sense of they as a species don’t call themselves intersex, but their genders are far more loosely determined at birth, because there’s not really sexual dimorphism (or rather, there is, but it’s so many different factors that it’s not classified) and then gendering comes later in life depending on what role they’re supposed to play in society ahem – different post to make!
> 
> Also Garak has a tail in this, also casually.. also this got longer than intended… oops?

1.

Their lives have a sort of normality that many families in this day and age exist with. Space travel, careers that necessitate being off-planet for long stretches at a time, the struggles of being a representative for entire planets or systems, all of this isn’t out of the ordinary.

Still, it takes them a little while to adjust, if only because they spent so long not getting it together that now that they _have,_ well, they want to savour it. On the flip-side their relationship functions much better than so many who enter into partnerships of some kind without fully considering the difficulties of spending so much time apart and inevitably crumble.

Because of all that time they know, without a doubt, that their lives are entwined for good, regardless of how much of it they spend without one another’s physical company.

They fall into letter-writing naturally. After all, they had been doing the same before, why stop now. 

2.

It has become something of a competition at this point: who can write the longest letter. Thus far, Julian is winning and Elim is still in the process of reading his when they see one another again. He pretends to be blasé about it, but Julian can read him easily these days. He wonders at the time when he couldn’t and can’t really picture it.

While Elim is giving him a back-handed compliment at the way he’s _managed to fold three words worth of content into whole paragraphs,_ Julian realises that he’s never known anyone as well as he knows Elim. And every detail of himself is known in turn. From the scars of his chest surgery that he purposefully kept, to the ridges at the base of Elim’s tail, it feels like everything about them was perfectly made for the other.

It’s strange, how many tiny moments are filled with love, they both learn.

(After Elim sends him a letter of 3000 pages, Julian simply answers: _You win)._

3.

They consider what it would be like to have a family with the way their lives are run. Elim generally lives on Cardassia unless his diplomatic duties take him elsewhere, while Julian is hopping from emergency to medical find to distress call to conference.

Still, they approach the matter on the premise that it will happen. Their letters during these years follow a trajectory of thought with little variation, as they can’t actually be together for the discussion.

They discuss pregnancy – both of them are capable of bearing a child, but the time needed (nine earth months for humans, even longer for cardassians) makes it a challenging prospect. Moreover Julian and Elim, each for their own reason, have issues with concepts surrounding an uncontrollable force fundamentally changing their bodies.

It doesn’t take them long to agree that adoption was always the only option. Still there’s the matter of their careers being incompatible with children. Neither of them wants to put a child in harm’s way and both of their careers contain elements of danger _. I believe,_ writes Elim drily and with an underlying sadness that Julian wishes he could heal, _that this sixth assassination attempt may contain a sign that a child would not be particularly safe in my company._

4.

The way this resolves itself is oddly perfect for what they need and who they are and comes through both of their continued work with mixed-species war-orphans, who more often than not are homeless, ostrasized and suffering from any number of easily treatable diseases. Garak opens a series of institutions in the name of Ziyal and habitually lends a hand in their various gardens where he befriends a number of the kids.

This plan also works to ground a lot of Julian’s focus in the space of mixed-species research, specifically writing papers on the future of the galaxy needing to see species integration for the sake of these kids as an inevitability as cultures mix and to understand the medical and cultural implications thereof.

Kira and Ro get heavily involved on the Bajoran side of things – in general a bunch of adults from DS9 days come together to give kids a better chance than they had. 

Beyond that though, they come to realise that they’re okay on family. With these kids – many of whom they get to know personally over the years – with Molly and Yoshi O'Brien and Rebecca Sisko getting older and the two of them functioning as uncles, there’s more than enough for them to be getting on with on the children front: _Elim and I were very happy to see you all again – Don’t worry, I’ll keep Yoshi safe – we’ll be making a stop at Bajor where Nerys is very excited to see him again –_

Their circle is actually a sizeable, cross-galaxy household. They come to realise that it doesn’t matter if your family is someone you can’t see often, what matters is they’re all inhabiting the same space.

5.

They don’t argue often. With the lack of time they have together, what would be the point of raising petty squabbles. There are things like the time Julian forgot about a very important dinner that Elim was a guest of honour at, which opened up a box of the kind of loneliness Elim thought he’d overcome, but it wasn’t about anger or arguing, it was about the two of them figuring out that sometimes this not seeing one another was actually damned hard. It was about asking for forgiveness and receiving it even before the asking. It was about making sure that they wouldn’t let things ever be unsaid, because their time together – comparative to their whole lives – was always going to be so short.

The actual worst long-standing consequence is that Elim and Julian are political celebrities, and so whatever tabloid-equivalent exists publishes one thousand pieces on their apparently irreconcilable relationship. Julian finds himself referred to as everything from a “heartthrob who found he needed more,” to “a cheater who habitually has several affairs at once.”

_It’s amazing_ , remarks Elim in his latest letter, _how these kinds of spurious articles are written even today, and how they still don’t seem to know the facts. On that note I hope you have a wonderful time with Data, and Parmak sends his love from my lap - it’s making it very hard to write this._

6.

They’re both twenty years older by now, but things aren’t slowing down with their work by the looks of things. Julian’s work centres more and more on the various groups whose medical needs are considered less valid or even non-medical, because of their social status and who often have medical issues of kinds that don’t come up in normative societies – mixed-species, augments, A.I. (for awhile his standing suffers, when he argues that mechanical needs for A.I. ought to be taught in Starfleet Medical), non-bipedal species, Ex-B’s, Jem'Hadar, clones.

Elim keeps his Carrington Award on the wall for everyone to see. Partly to mess with him – _To The Prestigious Winner of the CA –_ many of his letters begin for several years after, but mostly out of pride.

(In return and with as much love, Julian addresses him as _Ambassador_ and _Castellan_ – the joke evolves as they find ever more flowery titles for one another. Julian wins this one: _My Dearest, the Ambassador to the United Federation of planets, Castellan of the Cardassian Union, Blusher when Being Whispered Compliments about the Length of Your Tail, Not-So-Secret Reader of Austen and Pratchett, Seducer of Doctors (No Doubt Currently Spluttering in Denial), Possessor of Biteable Ridges (Blushing Again, I Hope) and of My Heart…_ this opening continues a further four pages. The letter itself reads: _I expect to land on Cardassia within the next three days. Surprise._ )

7.

At the end of it all, Julian finally comes to Cardassia for good. Along the way it’s become his home more than any planet, station, starship, or system, for the simple fact that he’s been returning to Elim, and Elim is home.

There’s a strangeness to all the time they have. The walks they take, the languid mornings, the discussions of books they’ve read whilst in each other’s company, it’s all far more surreal than the years spent wanting to see one another again and catching whatever moments they could.

They can’t shake the habit of writing one another letters, even as they’re sitting in the same room. They don’t need to be long or well-formed any more, although occasionally silly competitions spring up, just for fun.

The one Julian’s reading right now, as Elim’s tail languidly curls around his waist, simply says: _I am glad that you’re finally home – E_

_**–** _ **— The End ——**


End file.
